12. Women’s Sports Bars

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Economics of Everyday Things — Episode 12: Women’s Sports Bars

Host: Zachary Crockett (Freakonomics Network)
Date: February 9, 2026

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Main Theme / Purpose

This episode explores the rise and economics of women’s sports bars, focusing on The Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon—the first sports bar in America to play only women’s sports. Through the story of owner Jenny Nguyen and academic commentary, the episode investigates what it takes to create such a space, the untapped demand for women’s sports, and how changing "what’s on TV" might change culture and business alike.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Invisibility of Women’s Sports in Public Viewing Spaces

• Jenny Nguyen’s Motivation

  • In 2018, Nguyen and friends couldn't get the NCAA women's basketball championship on at a local bar, despite dozens of empty TVs ([01:09–01:58]).
  • The frustration led her to joke about opening a bar called “The Sports Bra,” dedicated to women's sports:

    “The only way we're ever going to watch a women's game in its full glory is if we had our own place.” (Jenny Nguyen, [02:42])

• The Broader Experience for Women’s Sports Fans

  • Watching women’s sports in public spaces is often difficult. Even finding games on TV can be a struggle.

    “The inability to find a place to watch it, the inability to find it at all on TV...you look it up on the Internet and you can't find it.” (Jenny Nguyen, [05:26–05:48])

• Academic Perspective: Cheryl Cookie

  • Studies show TV coverage of women’s sports on local affiliates has barely changed in decades—about 5% coverage ([06:16]).
  • Cultural awareness of men’s sports is “like the air we breathe,” in stark contrast to the effort required to follow women’s sports.

2. From Dream to Reality: Building The Sports Bra

• Personal Background

  • Nguyen, the daughter of Vietnamese immigrants, was passionate about basketball and later cooking ([03:35–05:06]).
  • Her father’s advice: experience the worst job in your chosen field before committing ([04:13]).

• Founding Challenges

  • All banks rejected her business loan proposal for lacking entrepreneurial experience, launching during the pandemic, and the novel concept ([08:10–08:29]).
  • Nguyen funded the project with life savings, help from family/friends, and a successful Kickstarter—$105,000 raised in a month ([08:47]).

3. The Sports Bra Opens — and Succeeds

• Opening Day

  • April 1, 2022: Opened to huge crowds and media attention ([11:20–11:42]).

    "I semi blacked out that day because there were just so many feelings." (Jenny Nguyen, [11:42])

• Business Model & Atmosphere

  • Appears like a classic sports bar but with five TVs, seating for 40, memorabilia, and exclusively women-owned breweries ([12:01]).
  • Purposefully designed as an unapologetic space for women’s sports:

    “The Sports Bra is unlike anything that I've experienced as a woman...It is a space that is explicitly about women's sports in an unapologetic way.” (Cheryl Cookie, [12:26])

4. Demand, Audience, and Economic Success

• Myth-Busting: People Want Women’s Sports

  • 2018 Nielsen poll: 84% of sports fans interested in watching women’s sports ([13:33]).
  • 2023 NCAA women’s basketball final had 9.9 million viewers ([13:33]).

• Access Still a Barrier

  • Women’s sports require “digging deep” for multiple subscriptions and effort to find coverage ([14:07–14:30]).

• Operational Challenges and Diversity

  • Cable/sports streaming can cost small bars $2,000+ per month ([14:30]).
  • The Sports Bra plays more than a dozen sports—from basketball to roller derby to the Special Olympics ([15:09]).

• Unexpected Customer Demographics

  • Many “regular” male clients find women’s sports more team-oriented and less “ego-driven” ([15:38]).

    “A lot of the men's sports to them have gotten so convoluted with drama, ego, selfish play. Whereas in a lot of women's sports, it's much more like classic fundamentals.” (Jenny Nguyen, [15:38])

• Financial Success

  • Over $1 million in revenue the first year—three times the average US bar ([16:01]).

    "It has been profitable since that very first day. I paid off all the loans...I was able to pay myself from day one.” (Jenny Nguyen, [16:14])

5. Broader Social Impact and Replication

• Potential for Expansion

  • Franchising and copycat bars in other cities—proof-of-concept for the business model ([16:39]).
  • Even partial shifts (“Women’s Wednesday” in other bars) seen as a victory ([17:00]).

• Creating New Fandom and Representation

  • Young girls seeing women athletes and fandom modeled in public spaces ([17:23–17:38]).

    "If I was 9 years old and my parents took me to a place like the Sports Bra, what kind of an impact that would have had on my life...All we're doing is changing the channel and it kind of changes everything." (Jenny Nguyen, [17:38])

• Personal Victory

  • Nguyen’s parents are now regulars:

    "Mom is there every day. Dad's there about twice a week...to eat and drink and watch sports." (Jenny Nguyen, [18:16])

• Breaking Down Stereotypes

  • Old-school bar-goers sometimes wander in and end up loving it ([18:47]):

    “And they sit down and they're like, this is rad.” (Jenny Nguyen, [18:47])

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|---------|-------| | 02:42 | Jenny Nguyen | “The only way we're ever going to watch a women's game in its full glory is if we had our own place.” | | 07:14 | Jenny Nguyen | “If we had our own place, what would we call it? ...The Sports Bra.” | | 11:42 | Jenny Nguyen | “I semi blacked out that day because there was just so many feelings.” | | 12:26 | Cheryl Cookie | “The Sports Bra is unlike anything that I've experienced as a woman...It is a space that is explicitly about women's sports in an unapologetic way.” | | 13:33 | Cheryl Cookie | “The idea that the demand or interest isn't there is now being challenged by empirical evidence. The audience is there. It's just the content isn't always easily accessible...” | | 17:38 | Jenny Nguyen | “All we're doing is changing the channel and it kind of changes everything.” | | 18:47 | Jenny Nguyen | “And they sit down and they're like, this is rad.” |

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Important Timestamps for Segments

• [01:09–03:00]: Jenny Nguyen’s origin story and frustration with inaccessible women’s sports in bars
• [05:26–07:07]: Universal experience of women’s sports fans; Professor Cheryl Cookie’s research
• [08:10–09:04]: Overcoming financing hurdles and Kickstarter success
• [11:20–12:01]: Sports Bra opening, immediate success, and community response
• [12:01–13:33]: Bar’s atmosphere and cultural significance for women
• [13:33–14:30]: Data on women’s sports viewership and broadcast access issues
• [14:30–15:09]: Operating costs and range of women’s sports broadcasted
• [15:38–16:14]: Male customers’ reactions; financial performance
• [16:39–17:23]: Franchising interest and future possibilities
• [17:38–18:16]: Intergenerational impact and family involvement
• [18:47]: Converting skeptics and growing acceptance

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Summary Conclusion

The Sports Bra’s story reveals a pent-up demand for women’s sports—and how an innovative business can meet that need, defy conventional wisdom, and become quickly profitable while changing how we imagine sports culture. The episode highlights that when you “change the channel,” you might just change everything—for fans, for business, and for the next generation of athletes and viewers.

Transcript

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[C]

We will see Notre Dame sit in this zone a lot and they're going to have to contest shooters and they will look to bring a couple players to McCowan if they can. On the catch in April of 2018, Jenny Nguyen got together with some friends to watch the NCAA NCAA Women's Basketball Championship at a local sports bar and we will see Mississippi State playing in the deny. These two teams each of the last two years defeated Connecticut to get to the national championship game, but when they got to the bar the game was nowhere to be found.

[D]

We roll in there and there's like 30 plus TVs. The game's not on any TV on the projector. There's a regular season baseball game and there's like one table of guys watching it.

[C]

She convinced a server to put the game on one of the smaller TVs and watched with her friends up until the dramatic end.

[D]

I think there was like 3.2 seconds left or something and Erike Ogunbowale gets the basketball at the three point line on an inbounds play, takes one dribble and launches it and the buzzer goes off and the ball goes through the net and I swear to you we lost our minds. No one else knew why everybody in the bar was staring at us because nobody was watching the same game.

[C]

We were in the parking lot after the game win. Couldn't shake the feeling that the experience was could have been better.

[D]

I hug a good friend of mine. I was just like, that's the Best game I've ever seen in my entire life. And she goes, yeah, can you imagine if the sound had been on? I said, the only way we're ever going to watch a women's game in its full glory is if we had our own place.

[C]

That thought sent Wynn on a mission to create something America had never seen. A sports bar that plays only women's sports. And as it turns out, there's a pretty strong financial case for doing it. For the Freakonomics radio network, this is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett. Today, women's sports bars. From a young age, Jenny Nguyen was obsessed with basketball.

[D]

I loved everything about it. The physicality, the. The beauty in the motion, the pace of it. Basketball was really my identity.

[C]

She dreamed of playing professionally, but her parents wanted her to follow a more traditional path.

[D]

My parents fled Vietnam during the war in 75. Mom was a bank teller for many, many years, and then dad was a janitor. My mom was like, crazy girls don't play sports.

[C]

Later, Wynn discovered a second obsession. Cooking.

[D]

I called my parents and told them that I wanted to be a chef. My dad, he gave me the best advice I think anyone could have given me. And I think he did it more to, like, scare me out of it. He goes, jenny, I want you to find the worst job in that field that you can find. Do it for a year, and if after that you still want that to be your life, then go for it.

[C]

Win took that advice and landed a job as a fry cook at a fast casual restaurant chain. The kitchen she found, was kind of like playing a sport.

[D]

I'm instantly hooked. The adrenaline rush, the being part of a team, timing, execution, being under a crunch, I thrived. So a year went by real quickly, and much to my dad's dismay, I was like, I love it.

[C]

She went on to graduate from culinary school. Then over the next 15 years, she embarked on a successful career as an executive chef for Fortune 500 companies and universities. She was still a sports nut, especially when it came to women's basketball. But finding those games wasn't easy.

[D]

I think that the experience for the women's sports fan is universal in a lot of ways. The inability to find a place to watch it, the inability to find it at all on tv. You know, a game is on on Thursday night, and you look it up on the Internet and you can't find it.

[E]

I've had this experience as well, going in a bar, just trying to watch the women's game, and, you know, it's a Struggle. Oh, well, you know, we can't change the channel because, you know, everyone's watching this game.

[C]

That's Cheryl Cookie. She's a professor at Purdue University, where she studies gender in sports. She's been tracking TV coverage of women's sports for 30 years. And she says that the sports bar issue is just part of the challenge that fans face.

[E]

In 1989, when we first first collecting data, the percentage of coverage of women's Sports was around 5%. In 2019, we were at 5.1% on the local affiliates and 5.7 on ESPN SportsCenter. You don't have to really try to be a fan of men's sports. Our culture makes it really easy. It's like the air we breathe. Even if you're not a sports fan, you know, when the super bowl is happening, right? You know, when the NFL football season starts, it's constantly there. Whereas as a fan of women's sports, you really have to invest. You really have to dig deep and know, okay, where do I go if I want to watch this match?

[C]

That's what Nguyen was thinking about back in 2018, watching the women's NCAA championship game without sound.

[D]

I was driving home that night and I was just like, you know, if we had our own place, what would we call it? I was just like, oh, yeah, the sports bra. And then a few days after that, I was like, ooh, I have a motto for it. We support women.

[C]

The idea of the sports bra became a running joke among Wynn's friends. An imaginary place where women's sports were always front and center.

[D]

Like, if we wanted to watch the championship of gymnastics, nobody would put that on and we'd be like, oh, at the sports bra, gymnastics would be on. My friends and I would just, you know, have this make believe land that was like, perfect.

[C]

In 2020, Wynn decided it was time to turn make believe into reality. She applied for loans to get the business off the ground. But this was at the peak of the pandemic, when bars were going out of business. Left and right.

[D]

These banks would always say, there's three main reasons we can't do this. One, you've never owned a business before, so you're completely inexperienced. Two, it's the pandemic and you want to open a bar and restaurant during a pandemic. And then three, this is literally a concept nobody had ever done before, which is very, very risky for a bank.

[C]

Every single bank turned her down. So she cashed out her life savings around $27,000 and cobbled together some more money from family and friends, and then she launched a Kickstarter campaign. That's when she knew her idea had struck a chord.

[D]

We reached our goal of 49,000 in nine days and by the time it closed 30 days later it was over 105,000. I've got thousands of responses. I got notes, letters, cards, things in the mail for Win.

[C]

It was a sign that she had tapped into something special. People were ready to show up, but finding the games to put on the TVs, well, that turned out to be the real challenge that's coming up. The Economics of Everyday Things is sponsored by crowdstreet. You're the kind of person who reads the fine print, who likes to make your own calls, who's built a life, not to mention a career, by thinking independently. So why shouldn't you invest that way too? Crowdstreet is built for self directed investors who want direct access to private market opportunities like private equity, private credit and real estate. Vetted offerings, transparent data and clear diligence summaries help you make confident, informed choices. Because independence doesn't stop at your desk or your business or your weekend projects, it should extend to your investments too. Invest the way you live independently. Learn [e-mail].

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[C]

The Sports Bra opened for business in northeast Portland on April 1, 2022. It was the first day of the NCAA Women's Final Four. Jenny Nguyen had always been told that she'd need to be patient, that it takes time for a bar to build A base of loyal customers. But at the Sports Bra, we opened.

[D]

To absolute media frenzy. There was hundreds and hundreds of people out front hours before we opened. I semi blacked out that day because there was just so many feelings.

[C]

The Sports Bar looks pretty similar to any other sports bar. It's an intimate space with five TVs, 40 seats and lots of dark wood. The walls are covered with sports memorabilia. There are 21 beers on tap, all from breweries owned at least in part by women. But according to Professor Cheryl Cookie, the Sports bra is about more than just sports and beer.

[E]

As a woman in this culture, there's a song and dance that I have to do just to go and watch a game like, okay, who are we? Where are we going to sit? The Sports Bra is unlike anything that I've experienced as a woman. It's unlike anything that I've experienced as a sports fan. It is a space that is explicitly about women's sports in an unapologetic way.

[C]

Cookie says the Sports Bra has had to fight back against a common narrative she's encountered in her work.

[E]

That people aren't interested in women's sports, that the women's game is not as exciting, it's not as interesting. People just don't want to tune in. I think the idea that the demand or interest isn't there is no now being challenged by empirical evidence. The audience is there. It's just the content isn't always easily accessible in the kinds of ways I think that men's sports are. If you make it easy for people to watch, they'll watch.

[C]

There's evidence to back that up. In a 2018 poll by Nielsen, 84% of general sports fans, women and men alike, said they were interested in watching women's sports. This past spring, the NCAA women's basketball final was aired on network television for the first time in 28 years. And it attracted a record setting 9.9 million viewers, about two thirds the audience of the men's final. It was also the most viewed college sporting event on ESPN's streaming platform.

[E]

And yet the ability to get content is really a struggle. You can't just leave ESPN on or Fox Sports. It takes a lot of investment and effort. It's getting multiple subscriptions to multiple different platforms to try to fill in the gaps and put all the pieces together.

[C]

Luckily for Wynn, there was a growing number of media companies focused on fulfilling this need. Networks and streaming platforms like just women's Sports, the Women's Sports Network and espnW now feature around the clock coverage of more than a dozen sports. Major cable providers generally charge by the number of seats and the number of TVs at a sports bar. For a 40 seat sports bar, the bill can easily run over $2,000 per month. Wind says the cost of utilities, which includes subscriptions and cable services, accounts for more than 50% of her expenses.

[D]

We've played, I mean, obviously the big ones. So soccer, basketball, tennis, softball, volleyball. We've done swimming, diving, gymnastics, cheer, pickleball, bowling, rugby, lacrosse, boxing, crossfit, Ultimate Frisbee, roller derby, the Special Olympics. We dedicated a TV to that.

[C]

And it's not just women who are tuning in.

[D]

A lot of the guys that come into the Sports Bra on the regular don't watch men's sports anymore, period. A lot of the men's sports to them have gotten so convoluted with drama, ego, selfish play. Whereas in a lot of women's sports, it's much more like classic fundamentals. And team oriented.

[C]

Customers like this have been a boon for Wynn. In the first year of business, the sports bra brought in over $1 million in revenue, three times the earnings of the average bar in America.

[D]

It has been profitable since that very first day. I paid off all the loans that I told people it'd take me five years to pay them. And then I was able to pay myself from day one, which a lot of owners don't for years.

[C]

Of course, Wynn has the benefit of operating in Portland, which is known to be a progressive town, but she thinks the model can work anywhere.

[D]

There's been people all up in my email about investing in a franchise, investing in the spread of the sports bra as far and wide as humanly possible.

[C]

Recently, another bar focused on women's sports opened in Seattle. It also plays men's sports some of the time, but win is still encouraged.

[D]

If other sports bars that are traditionally just playing men's sports decide that, oh, we're going to have a women's Wednesday where all the TVs are just playing women's sports. Oh my God. That would be a w. The mission of the Sports Bra is to increase visibility, representation, and the culture of fandom for girls and women's sports, period.

[C]

Part of that mission includes exposing girls to women's sports at a young age. The Sports Bra allows customers of all ages to watch games before 10pm and for win, that kind of access is personal.

[D]

I started to think about If I was 9 years old and my parents took me to a place like the Sports Bra, what kind of an impact that would have had on my life to be in a place that felt like I belonged. I thought about a little kid that could see a future for themselves represented on TV and then look around and be surrounded by people cheering for that person up there on the screen. All we're doing is changing the channel and it kind of changes everything.

[C]

And Win's parents, they are regulars now too.

[D]

Mom is there every day. Dad's there about twice a week, once to kind of like fiddle with things and then wants to eat and drink and watch sports.

[C]

For the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett. This episode was produced by Sarah Lilly with help from Lyric Bowditch and mixed by Jeremy Johnston. Do you ever have like an old school sports bar guy wander in and say, what the hell's going on here? Where's my baseball game?

[D]

Absolutely. And they sit down and they're like, this is rad. The Freakonomics Radio Network the hidden side of everything. Stitcher.

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